13 Worst Company URLs Ever: An Analysis

If you are going to conduct business online, you’re going to need a domain name. In fact, it’s one of those pretty important things you’ll need to get squared away when establishing a website. In some cases, your domain name can make or break you. You can potentially obtain better rankings in search engines with the right name. Or you can attract a better following when you’ve got a good brand going. But what happens when you make mistakes? Well, bad things can happen (e.g. you can become the subject of Internet mockery or bad memes). There are, in fact, some unfortunate examples of domain names gone wrong. Don’t let the same thing happen to you! Make sure you give your domain name careful thought before you register it.

By the way, if you’re going to register a name, try one of the services in our list of our favorite web hosts for online business or this list of cheap web hosting services.

So where does this lead us? While this stuff can come across as pretty juvenile, there are lessons to be learned.

There’s this list (rehashed below, please read on) that has been making the rounds of the net with the designation of “unintentionally worst company URLs or worst URL flops” but I cannot believe that the troublesome connotation of these names was truly lost to the owners. So I must ask: are these company URLs for real? Really now.

Plus what’s so hard about changing your name? I just did it twice in 3 months so there’s nothing to it. Well allow me to clarify: if you’ve got nothing to lose, then it’s fine and dandy to change your name. But you need to do it right away. When it comes to doing anything online, it’s pretty important not to make too many mistakes as you can suffer a hit to traffic, revenue or reputation if you don’t fix your problems right away. So if you can, then make those changes quickly! But be prepared to suffer the consequences of long term mistakes if you decide to ignore them.

But what if you come across a website with a weird name but it turns out that it’s done on purpose? So who wants to bet the people behind the following web sites just have a wicked sense of humor or were just ready to try some risque marketing schemes?

Granted, there are some sites that are no longer there, but for those who have persisted, why would they keep any of these URLs knowing now what brouhaha they’ve generated? 4 reasons:

• Inertia: too late, too much trouble to change anything, why bother
• Principle: all those people out there just have dirty minds; it’s their problem not ours
• Controversy: It’s an intentional marketing scheme to rile people up and keep them coming, though can you really snare targeted traffic this way? Perhaps by casting a wider net?
• Silver Lining: It was an honest mistake but the attention and traffic received from all the hype are just too compelling

With that, here is the list in all its glory plus some contributions I’ve incorporated:

1. Are you a celebrity or want to be one? Maybe you need an agent, lawyer, manager or publicist! Should you check out Who Represents to help you find an agent? Their website is at www.whorepresents.com!

2. Experts Exchange is a resource and destination for programmers who are looking to swap tech information and generate helpful discussion. Unfortunately, www.expertsexchange.com no longer exists!

3. Are you shopping for a pen? Well then stop by Pen Island for some cool products. Hmmm…. where is that again? It’s at www.penisland.net. Wait, uh, this site is now defunct. Oh well.

4. Do you need to see a therapist? Did you know you can find one online? Then check out Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com.

5. And what about the Italian Power Generator company called www.powergenitalia.com? These days, an unexciting “under construction” page is up.

6. Then there’s the Mole Station Native Nursery that’s located in New South Wales. www.molestationnursery.com is a redirect now.

7. If you want to shop for computer software, you can visit www.ipanywhere.com. Get it?! 🙂

8. And what about First Cumming Methodist Church for the faithful. You’ll find them at www.cummingfirst.com.

9. There’s a site by art designers that has the interesting name: www.speedofart.com.

10. I love Lake Tahoe! So to do some research on this awesome vacation locale, I should check out the aptly named website: www.gotahoe.com.

I picked up that rather funny list from various sources including IndependentSources.com.

As I was on a roll, here are more word derivations that I came across and checked out!

11. Another art site, but this can’t be anything but deliberate! Here it is: www.scentofart.com.

12. You can find some therapist help over at www.therapisthelp.com.

13. So I found an alternative to the defunct www.penisland.net. But it’s a t-shirt company definitely capitalizing on the notoriety of the original site. They are hawking pens and t-shirts, but so far only shirts are available. I wonder why. www.thepenisland.com

And here’s a BONUS. My awesome young bro-in-law’s decided to get into the eyebrow raising URL business too and he’s got a strongly worded blog called Flowjob.com, intentionally named that way of course. He really is nothing like he sounds in it.

Now I was going to hunt for more funky names but then you might think I just have way too much time in my hands.

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